#mlms

(It can be non-religious, but isn't gonna work for every single high control group, they're getting sneaky)

Providing community in times of need (love bombing)

Did I become a part of a welcoming community during a time of my life when I needed support and comfort, or was searching for purpose?

Did this community make me feel valued and special when I had everyone else in my life look down on me, or abandon me?

Did this community recognize something in me that nobody else did, and validated/explained to me what it means?

Have they offered reasoning, purpose and guidance that I desperately needed at the time?

Was the community's treatment of me same at the beginning and later, or did some of the warmth taper off, and rules got stricter as time went on?

You are special, here's the rulebook

Am I a part of special group of people who were chosen to save the humanity in some way, or the only ones with a chance to be saved?

Am I a part of a group who has important and sacred knowledge, and if only the rest of humanity would listen, the world would be better for it?

Is there a certain source of writings or rules that are considered the ultimate truth, and I need to adhere my whole life to it?

Am I allowed regular human freedoms like, taking walks, eating when and what I feel like, making my appearance individual or interesting as I please, without having to ask anyone or doubt if it's okay?

Am I encouraged to analyze situations and come to my own judgment, or are there certain rules I'm supposed to follow when thinking, and conclusions I'm supposed to reach? Would I be reprimanded for reaching a different conclusion?

Do we believe there is deep evil in this world, and it's being shown to us in certain human behaviours, that used to seem normal? (like drinking certain drinks, eating certain foods, making your own judgment calls, certain kinds of sexual behaviour)

Is the community convinced a certain catastrophe/great blessing will befall us, and this is why we don't need to worry about the current state of the environment or the quality of life? Is the focus only on preparing for the destined event/making it happen?

Are my finances wrapped up in this community, to the point where leaving would mean I wasted a lot of my money and labour?

You don't Need Them (You Only Need Us)

Have I been encouraged to avoid people who think or act a certain way, and to end friendships or contact with them, when they were not doing any harm to me?

Have I stopped socializing with my usual friends since joining this group, and gained distance from family members I used to like spending time with?

Have I critically examined people from the past to judge them over how wrong they've been about things, as opposed to community I'm in now?

Have I been encouraged to cut off family members and friends who don't agree with the community's beliefs or practices?

Is this community my only source of human contact, comfort, stability and safety? Would I lose everything if I left?

Would I be in danger of losing my job, my place of living or my financial situation if I left this community?

Am I in danger of losing the people closest to me if I leave, or change my beliefs so they no longer align with this community?

Will my friends in the community be encouraged to cut contact, and to not listen anything I say if I leave or change my mind about the community's beliefs?

Make us look good! (advertise)

Am I expected to wear a certain type of clothing, or have a lot of restrictions about what kind of clothing I can wear?

Are there things in the group that I have to keep a secret, and not tell to any outsider?

Is there a certain way I'm told to talk about the community, and how to display our beliefs and practices publically?

Am I encouraged, or required, to prompt other people to join the community? Are there set rules on how to approach them, and how to talk to them?

Is there surface knowledge we're supposed to share with outsiders, but deeper knowledge that needs to stay secret, until they get on our side?

Is appearance considered more valuable to my status in here than actions? Is it more important to make the group look good than to be a kind person in here?

Be Grateful (Don't think too much, don't question us)

If I follow instructions and don't feel okay, healthy or happy, is it always going to be my fault for not trying hard enough?

Have I been reminded more than once to be grateful for this community and what it's done for me?

Are there certain thoughts I'm scared to touch or think too much about, because if I did, a lot of things would stop making sense to me, and I wouldn't be able to continue believing what I do?

Are there any lacks of ethics or moral code in the group that sometimes make me uncomfortable, or make me wonder if things couldn't be done differently?

In the community's opinion, can a person become dangerous just for the kind of thoughts they have deep inside their mind? Are there thoughts we are not allowed to think?

Do I need to privately confess if I've had any unfavourable thoughts about the group?

Is it dangerous to confess if I've had any doubts or unfavourable thoughts about the beliefs of the community? Have I seen people get ostracized for doing so?

Are there always some convenient reasons to why I should not get my needs met, or be able to express how I feel? Is it considered evil or punishable to speak my own mind out loud?

Have I experiencing feeling uneasy or doubtful about some of the things that are taught to me, but I've seen what happens to people who question it so I'm keeping it silent?

Have I been instructed on what to do and how to change my mind if I feel uneasy and uncomfortable? Was my discomfort expected and sidelined by more rules?

Am I allowed to follow my own moral code that makes sense to me, or do I need to adhere to the moral code of the community and turn against anyone following their own rules, if they're a harmless and kind person otherwise?

Are there certain types of suffering that the community considers normal, or good and a sign of virtue? Are there members who are encouraged to go through suffering for some kind of benefit?

Rules for thee but not for me (I make the rules)

Is there a person, or a group of people in the community, that are so important and special, rules do not adhere them? Is it a privilege to be interacting with them or to be in their presence?

Is there a person in the community that can do no wrong, and whatever they say is considered sacred and to be listened to obediently?

Do I have to obey someone without question, on a daily basis?

Are there people who I have to obey absolutely, discarding my own thoughts and opinions? Is it forbidden to question or doubt their orders?

Is there one person central to this group's beliefs, who came up with the beliefs, and if this person was proved to be wrong, it would all fall apart?

Can I easily stand up to anyone in the community, or would standing up to certain people end up in punishment and ostracizing?

Is there a big discrepancy in how different sexes and genders are treated in this community? Are there allowances for one, where there are rules and enforcement for the others?

Is there one sex or gender that is supposed to be making all the rules, while another is supposed to follow and obey?

Is your sex and/or gender what decides your status in the community, rather than your actions and contributions?

The World is Evil (and you could be too, if you go astray)

Am I exposed only to the worst of the outside world, so I would know that there's no humanity out there? (wars, violence, abuse)

Do I feel uneasy surrounded by people who are not in my group, because they're going to be judging me, hating me, or trying to hurt me just for what I believe in and how I live?

Am I instructed to avoid looking at certain media, news, opinions, articles or books? Does it make sense to me that I shouldn't do that, or is it just because I might be manipulated by the misinformation'?

Is there a group of people whose perspectives and opinions I should not, in any case, be reading or looking at?

Have I seen or heard of people subjected to humiliation, disdain, contempt and hatred for speaking out against the community's beliefs?

Am I consistently warned that if I do a certain thing, or think a certain way, I might become 'just like one of the other ones', referring to people outside the community?

Have I ever been reprimanded for 'becoming one of them', meaning one of the outsiders?

Do I feel like there's nothing worse on than being 'one of them', referring to the outsiders of the group? Am I afraid I might become one, due to some of my doubts and things that don't make sense to me?

Does the community I'm in sometimes socially isolate and ignore people who have done something wrong in their eyes? Do people get silently ignored until they are sorry for what they've done?

Does the community sometimes overreact, and over-punish completely normal actions from certain members?

Can I end up punished for saying a wrong word to someone, or for perceiving something wrong and not the way it was meant to?

Could this punishment be out of proportion with what I did, but it doesn't matter to the community?

Have I, or other members of this community, been compared to demonic creatures, beasts, animals, slurs, or otherwise derogatory terms, in order to shame their behaviour or thoughts?

Is there a possibility to being denied food and shelter if I step out of line?

Have any members of the community been starved or sleep-deprived in order to 'achieve something' about their behaviour?

Think of the Children (but don't protect them)

Are children in the community taught to think a certain way, follow a set of beliefs, from early childhood?

Are there rules and regulations in how children are supposed to act and behave, that is not compatible with usual child behaviour?

Are children in this community given no autonomy at all? (not allowed to choose what they want to eat or what toy to play with)

Are children in this community given an inappropriate amount of responsibility? (expected to work as adults, treated as adults)

Are children restricted from reading certain books and consuming media that isn't connected to the media's rating? (book that are already safe for children)

Is parent's behaviour towards children regulated? Are there set ways of discipline that everyone follows, that would be considered abuse in the outside world, but we know better?

Does child abuse get reported in the community, or covered up and hidden from the authorities?

Do I know of one or multiple cases of sexually abused children in the community, who are unprotected and the aggressors never reported?

Are child victims of sexual abuse believed when they speak out, or is it mostly considered lying for attention?

People who Leave are Traitors (you can't listen to them)    

Are there people who were heavily invested in this community, dedicated a lot of their life and effort to contribute to it, who changed their opinion almost overnight, and distanced themselves from it?

Have people been taking their leave from the community, and then had their character attacked and smeared? Am I told to never contact these people or listen to what they have to say?

Are the stories that would make the community look bad declared offensive and obstructive material, regardless of whether there's any truth to them? Are they discarded without looking into it?

Are the people who leave portrayed as opposition who is trying to harm the group, or fakers who never truly belonged?

Do I expect something bad to happen to me if I leave?

Am I expected to become a bad, failed and broken person if I ever left the community or changed my beliefs? Would I be automatically considered a bigot or an oppressor if I left?

Believe (do not ask for proof)

Are the rules for how I should live strict, but at the same time, often changing if they're criticized or unpopular enough?

Is there a specific purpose that the community has and is claiming to achieve, but I can't tangibly see how it's being achieved? Are there promises being made that I can't see any progress on in reality?

Does the community work towards something that feels almost supernatural to achieve, and there's no visible progress, but we are assured it's going to happen?

Does the community make financial decisions that don't make sense? Is there money that disappears and nobody can tell exactly where to and what for?

Are donated/gifted resources and money disappearing never to be seen again, while the community keeps asking for more?

Does the community sometimes seem like they're above the law, and nobody could possibly inflict consequences on their actions?

Deserve to be here (you are not good enough)

Are there mandatory meetings and sessions that I have to either attend, or go through a lot of defending myself if I'm caught not present?

Are there consequences, social or practical, for failing to actively contribute in the community? Will I be shamed for being inactive?

Is there an expectation of continuous labour that I have to do consistently, but it is unpaid and uncompensated for?

Am I expected to donate/surrender my money, or some of it to the community, and failing to do so brings embarrassment and reprimands?

Is there a hierarchy I can only climb up to if I give enough labour, value, advertisement, or money to the community? Do I have to promise my loyalty in order to progress?

Is this community deciding what my income is, or what part of it can I keep? Do I get no income, but community provides survival resources and decides how much I am entitled to?

Am I continuously expected to prove my worth and value to the community, without ever feeling like it's enough?

Do I get anxious about providing enough value to the group, and feel pressured to do more for them as time goes on?

Do I often feel selfish, unreasonable and guilty for wanting and needing things for myself? Do I feel like I'm actively harming the community if I voice my needs and wants?

Am I, despite putting months and years of effort and support to this community, still sometimes made to feel like I'm no better than the outsiders?

Have I felt like I am not doing enough, and I'm not worthy of belonging here?

Your sexuality exists to serve a purpose (we decide it)

Am I expected to get married by a certain age, and see most of my peers getting married by that age?

Am I subjected to an uncommon type of marriage/relationship with a lot of restrictions/rules that are not common in the rest of society? (open marriage, polygamy, promise to be sexually available to someone without having a say)

Is sex either a restricted topic that isn't talked about in here, or something so central to the community it's being looked at and made rules about constantly?

Are the rules of the group about sex more important than consent and mutuality?

Is it frowned upon to call out sexual abuse in my community? Are the sexual predators being defended before victims are given a chance to speak out?

Are there rules restricting who am I allowed to feel attraction or love towards, and who is forbidden? If I develop a wrong type of attraction, will I be considered one of the 'bad people'?

Am I expected, at any point, to be sexually available to another person? If I refuse, will I be ostracized and deemed 'not good enough' or 'fake' in some way?

Your health is secondary to the cause

Have I been discouraged from seeking medical assistance when dealing with a medical issue? Have my issues been dismissed and downplayed when it felt serious?

Are there any rules to what kind of medical assistance I'm not allowed to receive, in a dire condition?

Am I encouraged to seek medical intervention when I'm healthy? Is there a procedure members of the community are supposed to get, in order to fully be a part of it?

Are there concerns about people's health that are being swooped aside for the sake of the community looking good and healthy?

Are there practices potentially damaging people's health, but we are pretending it's okay and discouraging those people to talk about it?

Is talking about a damaged health as the result of belonging to this community an act that is considered forbidden, aggressive and a form of fear-mongering? Is it being silenced and dismissed as nothing?

If while reading this, you felt the urge to defend a certain group of people and to prove to yourself you cannot be in a cult, do more cult research! Cults or high control groups have changed and evolved to the point where they're not religious or spiritual, and you can't see what is going on while it is happening to you. It can be a MLM or an internet support group or an off-grid society.

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

In any scam, any con, any hustle, the big winners are the people who supply the scammers – not the scammers themselves. The kids selling dope on the corner are making less than minimum wage, while the respectable crime-bosses who own the labs clean up. Desperate "retail investors" who buy shitcoins from Superbowl ads get skinned, while the MBA bros who issue the coins make millions (in real dollars, not crypto).

It's ever been thus. The California gold rush was a con, and nearly everyone who went west went broke. Famously, the only reliable way to cash out on the gold rush was to sell "picks and shovels" to the credulous, doomed and desperate. That's how Leland Stanford made his fortune, which he funneled into eugenics programs (and founding a university):

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/malcolm-harris/palo-alto/9780316592031/

That means that the people who try to con you are almost always getting conned themselves. Think of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scams. My forthcoming novel The Bezzle opens with a baroque and improbable fast-food Ponzi in the town of Avalon on the island of Catalina, founded by the chicle monopolist William Wrigley Jr:

http://thebezzle.org

Wrigley found fast food declasse and banned it from the island, a rule that persists to this day. In The Bezzle, the forensic detective Martin Hench uncovers The Fry Guys, an MLM that flash-freezes contraband burgers and fries smuggled on-island from the mainland and sells them to islanders though an "affiliate marketing" scheme that is really about recruiting other affiliate markets to sell under you. As with every MLM, the value of the burgers and fries sold is dwarfed by the gigantic edifice of finance fraud built around it, with "points" being bought and sold for real cash, which is snaffled up and sucked out of the island by a greedy mainlander who is behind the scheme.

A "bezzle" is John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." In every scam, there's a period where everyone feels richer – but only the scammers are actually cleaning up. The wealth of the marks is illusory, but the longer the scammer can preserve the illusion, the more real money the marks will pump into the system.

MLMs are particularly ugly, because they target people who are shut out of economic opportunity – women, people of color, working people. These people necessarily rely on social ties for survival, looking after each others' kids, loaning each other money they can't afford, sharing what little they have when others have nothing.

It's this social cohesion that MLMs weaponize. Crypto "entrepreneurs" are encouraged to suck in their friends and family by telling them that they're "building Black wealth." Working women are exhorted to suck in their bffs by appealing to their sisterhood and the chance for "women to lift each other up."

The "sales people" trying to get you to buy crypto or leggings or supplements are engaged in predatory conduct that will make you financially and socially worse off, wrecking their communities' finances and shattering the mutual aid survival networks they rely on. But they're not getting rich on this – they're also being scammed:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4686468

Steve: oh you mean like gays? I have to be gay?

Eddie: wait a minu-

Steve: is this like a support group thing? Or like gsa? Do I just have to date a guy? Can I do that?

Eddie: Stevie hold on-

Steve: omg can I be dating that hot rocker elf with curly hair? Actually can we be secretly married? Omg with a dog that I named after my hot rocker elf husband.

Eddie: no-

Steve: wait I can’t? why not?

Robin: yeah Eddie why can’t sir Stefan have a happy life with his husband? That’s seems kinda homophobic of you ngl

Investing in Cryptocurrency is Bad and Stupid

If you’ve been reading our blog for long, you probably could’ve guessed we think investing in cryptocurrency is bad and stupid.

And yeah, I considered using more expansive words like “unethical” and “speculative” instead of “bad and stupid.” Those words had precision, but lacked panache.

Our Patreon donors vote on potential article topics, and this month they wanted to read our thoughts on investing in cryptocurrency. So we get questions about it all the time! Which isn’t surprising. Relative to cash and traditional investment vehicles, crypto is new and confusing. To make matters worse, there’s so much hype surrounding it in the personal finance world that research feels like reading a data science textbook through a swarm of bees.

Mercifully, we’re not here to explain what crypto is, or how the mysterious blockchain technology works (others have done that intolerably boring work for us). Rather, we’re going to release you from caring about crypto in the first place!

So it’s our personal opinion that investing in cryptocurrency is bad and stupid, and you shouldn’t do it. Here’s why.

Keep reading.

Lucy Undying by Kiersten White, 2024

2/5 ⭐️

I truly wish, like many fellow readers on Goodreads, that I could rate this book more highly, but alas, I cannot.

Keeping it simple: I did not like this book. I disliked it more and more as it went on and its greatest weakness is a poorly-executed structure. I found myself asking questions like why include an epistolary narrative interspliced with current, first-person-narrated chapters (which I've seen done well in the past) if you're going to abandon that halfway through without so much as some "Part I" and "Part II" title pages? This formatting (and at least two typos in the book, one of which I remember being a spelling error, and the other a failure to consistently adhere to a particular spelling of one word that has multiple forms accepted by English dictionaries--an editor needs to pick one and stick with it, in my opinion) made the novel seem like more of a hastily-produced creative project than a thoughtful, romantic, and feminist retelling.

Here are the Pros: a murder and compelling premises! A Dracula retelling, sapphic romance, historical-flashback-modern storytelling structure, and a vampire MLM cult—these all grabbed my attention from the start. There's also few features, like a couple of twist reveals, albeit predictable ones, that I enjoyed. There are also a few episodes that lean into the historical fiction aspects and a few that serve primarily to characterize some figures in the form of short stories.

Cons: everything else.

First, the structure is so inconsistent. It's a semi-epistolary novel, and the letters get progressively shorter, as do chapters with different perspectives; it's too sloppy for me to appreciate the creativity of the overall form. The content we get from later chapters about Dracula himself are especially low points; they orient the reader in a second-person voice to ensure the (apparently always young, attractive, and female) audience is absolutely, 100% certain of how evil Dracula is as a stand-in for Western patriarchy.

Second, not a single one of the characters is truly likeable by the end. I like to think that I have a wide range for appreciable characters—none fit that range by the end of the story. Neither the main protagonists, villains (because to me they are only evil caricatures that I don't want to deem proper antagonists), or minor characters are fleshed-out sufficiently.

Third, every critique of power structures such as patriarchy or organized religion is inconsistently addressed, and never really explored beyond the surface-level. White repeatedly bashes her audience over the head about the evilness of greed for money and power, things only easily accessible to men historically. The only chapter regarding this that held my attention was a minor character's story about getting involved with the MLM, who then only showed up twice later on briefly as a savior figure (??) to get a couple of the heroes out of a pinch. I would honestly have read an entire book about only her and her lost faith in the MLM she joined and how it destroyed and reshaped her life. There was a lot of potential there for a genuine exploration of the corruption pyramid schemes are built on, manipulative versus wholesome human connection, sapphic love in Utah—shoot, am I on my way to write this fanfic? Moving on.

Fourth, the romance was bland and underdeveloped. That's really all I care to say about that. 💔

Fifth, what in the world is up with White's perspective on white, Western characters interacting with other cultures? Why is everything so easy? Lucy (one of the two protagonists) learns languages like it's nothing, really doesn't have any nineteenth-century prejudices to confront besides her own self-misogyny, and the way she and Iris (other protagonist) both describe the Doctor (a Black female vampire) just feels weird to me. They give plain descriptions that really just don't seem necessary besides allowing Iris to recognize her from Lucy's description when they're separated. That screams slopping writing to me and something that smells of blatant tokenism. Maybe that's just my harsh perception, though. Is White afraid to address racism, xenophobia, and other challenging themes of the original Dracula novel, or was she hoping to tell a story that takes place in conservative America and pre-twenty-first-century England where older vampire characters are too concerned with their ancient personal issues to be imbibed with modern prejudices?

The thing is, many of White's vampires are not that old—they are all younger than Dracula and why he is the oldest vampire is not really explained. This is an example of why I feel that her worldbuilding is over-reliant on knowledge of the original novel, and I believe she could have done a better job enhancing characters with even small explorations of these topics. Also, White mentions over and over that vampires are stuck grounded in beliefs and personality cornerstones that they held onto at the age of their turning, and therefore cannot age mentally beyond that age. Thus, it makes no sense that White wouldn't at least try to address a little of the Western fear of the foreign that is so present in Stoker's novel, since there should be plenty of older vampires for Lucy to interact with who hold onto less-than-savory values. Lucy herself, is, of course, perfectly innocent with hardly any corruptible qualities other than falling in love and trusting too easily. Mary Sue much? Bleurgh.

Sixth: This novel is obsessed with giving power back to the worthy, and asserting who the worthy are: two somewhat Byronic women who are rich but don't care to be, aren't smart with money, care more about healing their inner child than saving their adult self for any reason besides having a bland romantic relationship that has little basis besides general lust, and those who have a commonality of hating their overbearing mothers and uncaring fathers. This is extremely ironic because so much of the wording throughout the book just recycles the same weak message about defying heteronormativity and gender norms. Why do we have to idolize Lucy, whose assessment of her nineteen-year-old self is admittedly harsh but mostly accurate? She is a silly girl! She calls herself that, and it's true, but one can be young and innocent and brave, while also being spoiled and sheltered and weak. I hated the scene where Iris finds her crush's diary and defends poor, angsty Lucy against herself (who is literally too old to be acting like this by both Victorian and modern standards, honestly), who struggles so much with self-hate that she cannot accept that she was a victim of a terrible crime even over a century later. I felt like a third person in the room reading this scene, and wanted to shake them both by the shoulders and scream; it was too similar to me to other book characters and also real-life conversations I've had with people who are way too old to be stuck in their cycles of self-pity for as long as they've been. On the surface, these feelings are completely understandable given Lucy's (and Iris') viciously traumatic backstory—from growing up queer in nineteenth-century England to suffering long before turning into a vampire, Lucy will forever be on the road to recovery as an immortal. However, the way White depicts her and other female figures just doesn't sit right with me.

Furthermore, no villain figure was actually realistic enough for my liking. It's difficult to sell a story that proposes vampirism as a serious topic for discussing feminism and general patriarchy while also restricting your twenty-first-century-era characters to one dimensional behaviors. One letter from Mina's perspective at the end, for example, is not enough to flesh her out; we do not get enough of her inner thoughts to justify that letter even being necessary to the narrative honestly. Moreover, there are really far too many villains in this story and only one (Dickie, whom we barely get to know anything about, and are left with more questions than answers) is given some time to finally speak himself into a full picture instead of yet another evil figure of male arrogance like every single other male character. He disappears into the background towards the end though. What gives? Also, are Mina and Iris' mother supposed to be foils? Is anyone in this book a foil? Iris and Lucy are clearly supposed to be, given their similar trajectories of suffering. What's the point of foils, though, if they become the same person in a relationship with one another?

White seems afraid or simply unprepared to really have a conversation, not just commentary, about what makes us human beings, and why we perceive some people as evil, irredeemable monsters, and some as worthy of our attention and protection and economic status. This conversation that she attempts is supposed to take place between perspectives from different chapters in her book, but the form is just too unfixed to carry the strength of any underlying themes from one part of the story to the next, i.e. death of the living self, the complexity of motherhood, love as change, female financial independence, the pursuit of freedom, or transformative mobility. I think it is entirely fair to put a good deal of this blame on the editors.

I could go on. This book is not worth it. Put it down!

TL; DR: pacing issues, dislike of underdeveloped characters + relationships, lazy plot structuring, racism or willful ignorance of it??, lazy worldbuilding due to too much reliance on Dracula readers' knowledge, we KNOW Kiersten White could do better; she literally wrote the fantastic historical fiction trilogy AND I DARKEN!!

I've included some fun/valid remarks from Goodreads reviews here ("Forrest Gumping her way through European history" killed me omg). I like to peruse negative reviews as a cathartic method of commiserating with other readers. It helps me feel less lonely and justified in disliking this novel, especially as most reviewers seem to have come to the same conclusion I did that the pacing is one of the biggest issues; we all agree that the first 70% of the story is far more boring than needs be due to factors like repetitive internal monologues. Could White have hammered in her point about hatred for over-controlling mothers any harder?? Lord. That's all.